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Emerald Spire 12.0 - Competing Interests
Deciding to take the weakened Jhard back to Fort Inevitable for medical care, they first broke open the safety box they had stolen from Zdislav. Inside, they found a variety of small items, including another spire transport key and an ioun stone. The stone granted a Disguise Self effect so it was given to Ismail, allowing him to take a more human appearance and enter town. With that, the group walked up the stairs towards the exit, deciding to just saunter through the goblin den. The goblins merely scampered away and began banging their alarm, as usual, and did nothing to impede their exit. The five people were stopped at the gate to town by the two guards on station: they questioned who the practically unconscious man they carried was and what had happened to him. They explained that they had found him and were taking him to get medical attention, which the guards approved of. However, they were less than thrilled about the giant centipede that was following Ismail. The cleric, still unable to make facial expressions due to the nature of the illusion covering him, showed them his holy symbol of Fierna and stared them down. Highly unsettled, they let him enter unopposed, but muttered that he had better be registered with the Adamantine Order. Once inside town, they took Jhard to the infirmary for care. He was terribly weakened from his tortuous experience, and would be laid up for weeks recovering. Amara said that she would stay with him for the time being, but cut the two adventurers a cheque for their services in finding and rescuing her fellow guildmate. Kormon and Marin split the money they had obtained, both from Amara and from what they had recovered from the spire; Amara refused a share, though she took some of the excess in order to make an easy even split, and Ismail seemed quietly baffled that he had received payment at all. With that, Marin excused himself to go back to the inn, in order to copy out maps to sell to Mr. Royst. Kormon went to the local bank and exchange to liquidate their assets, and Ismail tagged along silently behind him, seeming to have nowhere else to go. While Marin worked in his room, there was a knock at the door. Two guards from the Adamantine Order ordered him to come with them to have an enforced meeting with their lieutenant general, citing that he had signed a contract which obligated him to do so. Marin considered jumping out a window, but instead decided on allowing the men to take him to the barracks. Lt General Dominica was a blunt woman, not ashamed of her guild's interests in the Spire. She twisted Marin's arm during the conversation, attempting to bully and coerce him into investigating deeper into the Spire for them, particularly levels seven through nine, which were apparently controlled by a group of claw vipers which had stalled their own progress. According to her, the Adamantine knights had already delved into floor ten and possibly beyond, but she refused Marin's requests for the short-cut. She promised great rewards for his obedience and detailed reports of what he had discovered in each floor of the Spire, bounties for proof of slain monsters and for the seditionist Zdislav's head, and equal punishments for his refusal. At the end of the terse meeting, she gave Marin an emblem of the order, telling him it would get the goblins out of his way. After that, Marin returned to the inn, finished his maps and dropped in on Mr. Royst. The elder man was deeply interested in what Marin had seen and found, but the performer's mind was much more focused on his run-in with the Adamantine Order than on the Spire itself. Mr. Royst was unsettled by the news he brought of the deathknights' interest in the ruin, of the apparent presence of the Quicksilver Conclave, and of extraplanars sneaking their way into the plane on top of it. The Adamantine Order generally had no interest in things that weren't either people to kill or things to kill people with, the Quicksilvers were only attracted to things of arcane power, and extraplanars reaching Materia without a summoner was dire indeed. The whole thing reeked of instability, and he questioned whether or not he should flee the city before it came to a head. Regardless, Mr. Royst offered to help in any way he could: he wasn't young any more, and he was no wizard, but he had a lot of knowledge in arcana and history, and could perhaps learn more about the properties of the spire for them if they brought him a sample. Marin appreciated the man's legitimate-seeming help, and took his payment for the maps. Thoroughly tired, Marin returned to the inn, and wrote out the majority of a report for the deathknights before going to bed, though he hadn't yet decided if he was going to turn it in. Kormon, after finishing his errands, returned to the inn as well with Ismail in tow. The skeleton sat quietly as Kormon ate, and after some time, they were joined by Amara, who had left Jhard in the care of the medics. She seemed very unsettled by something, and Kormon waited patiently for her to confess her thoughts. Eventually, she blurted out that she had been told a secret, and shouldn't tell anyone, but she trusted Kormon and really, badly needed help with it. It seemed that Jhard was no acolyte: rather, he was an accomplished wizard of the order, who had been sent with his partner Tiana to investigate the spire. The Quicksilvers knew that the spire was extremely powerful, and that the Adamantine Order had taken interest in it: their job was to sabotage the efforts of the Adamantines, while looking for any information hidden deep within the dungeon that could be used to harness the power of the spire for their guild over the Adamantine Order. Apparently, an ancient wizard had used it to great effect, and any of his notes would be of great value. Jhard, who could no longer carry on his mission, had passed it on to Amara, as no one knew what had happened to Tiana. However, Amara seriously doubted her ability to carry out this mission alone, and pleaded for Kormon and the others to help her in this. She promised that she would pay them very well as freelancers working for the Quicksilver Conclave, and promised that Kormon would not get tied down in legal red tape and obligation to the guild. Strongly distasteful of wizards but sensitive to Amara's plight, he agreed. Ismail agreed as well, muttering that his goddess obviously wanted him to do something with either them or the spire, but he hadn't precisely figured out what yet, so would gladly join them if they were continuing to delve the dungeon. With that, Kormon retired for the evening, followed shortly after by the other two. Kormon and Marin were the first to leave their rooms in the morning. They shared what they had learned the previous day regarding the two warring guilds, and their own misfortunes at getting tangled in it. Whether or not they were in over their heads, they agreed that they would keep pressing forwards: first, to stop the madman Zdislav, who obviously posed a threat, and then to meet once more with the Splinters. They agreed that whoever ended up controlling the spire, it probably shouldn't be either of the two guilds, or the extraplanar Sabreal and her minions; the Splinters might be the only ones they could trust. Category:Emerald Spire